


sans le fear of impending doom

by embryonic



Category: Black Swan
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-10
Updated: 2013-09-10
Packaged: 2017-12-26 05:38:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,116
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/962239
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/embryonic/pseuds/embryonic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It feels like freedom.</p>
            </blockquote>





	sans le fear of impending doom

**Author's Note:**

> Have I fooled you, dear? The time is coming near when I'll give you my hand and I'll say,  
> "It's been grand, but... I'm out of here. I'm out of here.”  
> \- St. Vincent

When Nina wakes up in the hospital, she does so with sore eyes and a numbness in her arms and legs.

She tries to sit. Most pieces of her body are numb, actually. She can’t feel any inch of her legs and this does not startle her at all until she thinks of Beth and her awful, awful condition. She pulls the covers off of herself as frantically as she can, yelping at the pain that shoots through her midsection.

Her legs are perfectly fine, if not for the long period of stiffness she’ll have to work out eventually. Her stomach though; that is another story. She almost has time to dwell on the soreness, on her actions (The Swan Queen - hadn’t she been perfect?) before her mother - oh, of course, her mother - awakes from Nina’s small cries and is there beside her bed leaving Nina with no time to remember.

“Oh, Nina,” She’s saying, “You lost so much blood. Oh my sweet girl,” She croons, “We thought you were dead.”

-

For a week straight, Nina doesn't speak, and focuses the little energy she has on not thinking. It’s a harrowing task - to refrain from feeling, regretting - and Nina spends her days with her mind dancing. She dances The Nutcracker and Gissele; Le Corsaire and La Bayadare.

She does not dance Swan Lake.

Her subconscious, inevitably, catches up with Nina in her dreams.

Once, she is burning to death, on stage in front of a million people. She sees herself in the audience mouthing something she can’t understand. She feels the flames licking at her skin, and the audience is cheering, and even in death she does nothing to help herself.

-

When she wakes up a week later, it’s to the sound of, “Oh I’ll just be a minute you old bitch” coming from her doorway, her mother’s gasp, the light sound of footsteps.

“How dare you -”

“Leave it, mom,” Nina says.

Her mom gasps again, but this time in shock, rather than anger and she can feel Lily’s smile before she can see it.

“I said leave.”

-

It turns out to be more than a minute, more than one visit, and when Nina asks _why_ Lily chooses to spend so much free time here, she gives an awkward answer of, “Maybe I like it here.”

But Lily avoids a few choice subjects like the plague when she visits.

She talks about her nights out, about what a bitch Veronica had been that day, about how hot the guy she managed to fuck the night before was. (She does not talk about how the hospital has changed into a mental ward, or about Nina’s recurring night terrors, or about dancing or the past or before.)

She’s got a practiced habit of pretending everything is okay and Nina thinks that perhaps, this has always been Lily’s appeal. She is light, where Nina is dark. And lately, the notion of Lily being something she’s not comes with new-found admiration.

“Lily,” She says once, bravely. “What was it like?”

“Hmm?” Lily asks.

“Swan Lake,” Answers Nina with a tilt of the head. “After.”

“I didn’t -” She starts. “I let Veronica have it.”

Nina blinks, looks up. “You what?”

But Lily shrugs, and she seems diffident, like she just doesn’t - “I doesn’t matter to me.” She says. “It didn’t mean as much to me as it did to you.”

The concept sounds so foreign to Nina. She looks up at Lily, flipping through a magazine. Careless.

“Lucky.” Nina says.

-

Probably, no one expects her to recover.

(Probably, it’s for the best she stays here, in the hospital, fading away. Maybe.)

Lily has an idea. An idea. Nina hardly has the energy to take her seriously. But her mother is gone; left her post reluctantly for dinner.

Lily asks, “Don’t you ever want to get out of here?” Brows raised. “We miss you, you know. Can tell Thomas doesn’t think any of us are good enough with our _lazy plies_.” She mimics in a bad French accent.

Nina waits a moment, calmly. Lily looks hopeful. “They don’t miss me.” She hardly says. Lily’s face falls with consideration and she continues, “It was silly of me to think they’d visit. Thomas. Thomas and Beth and -”

“Come on,” Lily cuts her off seriously, and Nina blinks back the hot tears that have begun to form.

“What?” Nina asks.

“Fuck them.” Lily holds out her hand.

(And when she smiles, her eyes light up and the part of Nina that says, “All right. Let’s go.” Is the same part that does not believe this is real or true, at all.)

\--

“Fucking, hurry up,” Lily laughs, waving Nina over to where the car is parked outside of the hospital.

Nina hears herself giggling manically, and wonders when, if, how, this dream will end and where on earth she will wake up.

Lily’s got the car started, windows rolled down, by the time Nina slides into the passengers seat.

“Where did you get my mom’s keys?” Nina asks meekly, her head along the headrest. Oh, god, to imagine her mother’s face when she sees Nina’s empty room.

Lily mirrors Nina’s smile, laughs. “Don’t worry.” She says. “I left mommy dearest a note telling her we needed some fresh air and a few hours away from her god damn pampering.”

Nina sighs, closes her eyes. “Sometimes I wish I never had a mother at all.” She says. “I wish I had a dad, you know? Teach me to play baseball or something.”

“Mm,” Lily smirks. “You would fantasize about being a softball player.”

Nina blinks, opens her eyes. “I -” She starts, but laughs despite herself, and everything.

“You know,” Says Lily after a while, “You’re a lot more relaxed than you used to be. Maybe that psycho-therapy bull shit really did do you some good.”

Nina laughs again, openly, freely. Lily asks “What’s so fucking funny?” And Nina just says, whispering maybe, “None of this is real.”

Lily looks at her strangely, but it doesn’t matter, not really.

“Where are we going?” Nina asks, her head lolling to the side, watching as Lily’s face comes into focus from a different angle.

Lily makes the same motion, until her smile isn’t lopsided anymore. Then, slowly, she watches her own hand trail down to Nina’s until their fingers are touching. (And it’s a dream, _it’s a dream_. Now Nina knows for sure.)

“Heaven,” Lily says, so close to Nina’s lips.

A gust of wind (is there wind in dreams?) as the car takes off. Maybe they’ll drive forever, maybe she’ll never wake. Maybe.

Nina breathes in. The fresh air, the touch of skin on skin. It feels like freedom.


End file.
